YouTube Faces Outage Traced To Recommendations System

YouTube suffered a brief outage Tuesday evening, which caused many people to report access problems to both the site’s main page and app. 

The Google-owned YouTube has discovered the outage’s cause, saying: “An issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids). The homepage is back, but we’re still working on a full fix – more coming soon!”

The initial outage reports began around 7:45 pm EST, and quickly escalated to over 310,000 users reports by 8:15pm, according to Downdetector.com.

In some cases, the outage caused the YouTube app to show the error “Something went wrong,” along with the button “Try again.” But clicking the button would fail to load any videos.

(Downdetector.com)

Other users reported only the main YouTube page was down, while all other features were active, which aligns with YouTube’s findings. YouTube confirmed the problem about an hour after the first outage reports, writing in a tweet: “If you’re having trouble accessing YouTube right now, you’re not alone.” 

The video-sharing service plans on posting updates about the situation in a dedicated support page. In the meantime, some users say they’re no longer encountering problems accessing YouTube, suggesting the fix is already rolling out. In addition, Downdetector.com currently shows the number of outage reports dropped.

The connection problems appeared to also affect paid streaming service YouTube TV — but to a lesser degree. DownDetector.com shows the outage reports for YouTube TV reaching over 8,600 at about 8:35pm EST.

Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by PCMag parent company Ziff Davis.

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Michael Kan

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I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.

Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.

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